FORM vs. FIXTURES

There is always ‘talk’ about whether the selection of a player should be based on one of two key factors.

Either favourable forthcoming fixturesOR favourable current form!

I have always gone with Fixtures.

I had this dilemma recently with DCL. Everton’s 6 ‘tricky’ fixtures in 7 matches gave me a decision to make! These 6 ‘tricky’ are all 4 on the FDR scale.

I decided to jettison him for Jimenez who has ‘easier’ fixtures – five with a 2 FDR and one with a 4 FDR.

So what does DCL do against Arsenal – SCORE!

Annoyed and wanting statistics over my arbitrary decision making to give me answers I decided to ‘analyse’ nineteen FPL players – the top ten high-scoring plus nine ‘significant’ others to see what their average score is against teams from each FDR category so far this season.

Here are my findings: –

FDR Average Score

Total Score

2

3

4

5

KDB

178

6.7

7.3

7.4

–

Salah

175

6.7

7.6

8.0

–

TAA

163

5.8

7.7

4.7

–

Mane

160

8.5

7.2

3.6

–

Vardy

156

9.3

3.0

3.4

5.5

Aubameyang

150

5.6

7.1

4.2

–

Jimenez

138

6.0

2.8

5.0

5.5

Ings

137

4.5

6.1

5.7

2.0

Robertson

136

5.4

4.1

5.3

–

van Dijk

134

5.2

5.6

4.4

–

Abraham

131

6.4

6.5

2.9

–

Richarlison

129

4.5

7.3

3.3

6.5

Firmino

126

4.9

4.5

4.0

–

Aguero

123

7.9

6.1

3.5

–

Pukki

123

4.9

2.8

6.3

–

Grealish

116

5.6

2.8

4.3

–

Maddison

114

4.1

3.4

4.1

4.5

Martial

112

6.1

4.5

5.7

6.0

DCL

102

1.9

6.0

5.6

1.0

Interesting reading!

If we stay with DCL it shows he actually scores very poorly against the weakest (2) and strongest (5) opposition! He is at his most prolific against teams with a 3 or 4 FDR! Looks like I made a mistake!!

The ‘big guns’, KDB & Salah show contempt to everyone! They score strongly against one and all!

Vardy is interesting. People think he does better against stronger opposition – wrong! He’s actually a flat track bully! Well this season anyway!

Jimenez, Pukki & Grealish oddly all score well against all teams apart from those with a FDR of 3!

Ings, Robbo, VVD & Firmino all have a consistent scoring pattern against all opposition.

Abraham and Richarlison also score well, but they dip against teams with a 4 FDR. Ricky’s score against the very best – those with a 5 FDR is pretty impressive! But that ironically is just in the two matches against Liverpool & Man City!

Again there is a misconception that Aguero scores freely against everyone. The stats show though, like Vardy he’s largely a dominator of inferior sides!

Maddison is slightly lower in terms of scoring but it’s super consistent against all sides .

Martial, for me is the most interesting. His scoring is phenomenal! Probably the fifth best out of all the players. The trouble is, he misses too many matches through injury (ahem)!

I don’t know if there are any conclusions or whether the information is just ‘interesting’!

For me, there is definitely a ‘balance’, but the table clearly shows a ‘quality’ player will score well against most / any opposition, so I am going to abandon my ‘Fixtures’ approach and trust my players whoever they’re against!

I’m also keeping the top five – KDB, Salah, TAA, Mane and Vardy in my team for the rest of the season!